Bad Birthday Experience

My nightmare experience begins when I recently recieved a 10% off one item coupon in the mail and decided to use it on purchasing a new laptop. After deciding which laptop I wanted, I couldnt get the coupon to load on the website so I tried the chat line who was willing to apply the coupon but couldn't understand that I simply wanted to pick the item up from a store rather than have it shipped.

Me and my wife traveled to the Bestbuy location near Ridgmar Mall where an associate named Danielle stated the laptop was out of stock but it was currently in stock at the Hulen location nearby. When we suggested we would just travel to the store Danielle pretty much insisted (in a nice way) we go ahead an make the purchase in the store to ensure the product is retained when we get there.....so we reluctantly did.

On our way to the Hulen location we recieved an email stating the item would be shipped to the store on February 15th! My wife called and spoke with an associate named Sara who said we would need to go back to the original store and cancel the order and then proceeded to hang up on my wife when she asked to speak with a manager.

We entered the Hulen location where we were greeted by Sara's eyerolls, a 'Whatever' comment, and suprisingly an even ruder associate named Jullianne who said she was the manager. All of this happened in front of the manager who proceeded to argue and tell us that Sara didn't hang up on us because she was standing right beside her on the phone, there was nothing they could do, and we needed to travel to the other store to cancel the order.

My wife asked for a District Managers phone number and was given a 1800 number and spoke with someone who told her that was the wrong number to call for a District Manager. The manager then commented that she couldn't just give us his personal number (ummm duh, we just wanted a point of contact, email, voicemail...anything). We both questioned why the manager couldn't cancel our order to which she finally agreed to call the other store and cancel it. The manager then went into a story about how someone from that store had already called and implied we had somehow been problematic at the Ridmar location, this is simply untrue...we actually had a pleasant experience and were treated nicely at that location.

We have been Bestbuy customers for a decade or more and were highly dissapointed by how all the associates in the Hulen location acted like this problem was somehow our fault. Had an apology for not having the product in stock been made and some attempt to find it at another location been made we probably would've left satisfied but even after voicing this was our expectation to another manager and associate we were just stared at blankly. We could swallow a solution but no one seemed interested in finding one.

We may only be one customer and it may have only been one purchase but I can assure you this experience was so bad that we will never purchase another product from Best Buy again. We commonly purchased tvs, computers, and even some larger appliances in the past. We will share our bad experience with everyone we know in hopes that they shop elsewhere too.

I suppose an even more dissapointing and frustrating conclusion I came to is customers like myself don't even seem have a proper format to voice these complaints (no email address that I could find), no contact number for a store director or higher up, and certainly no one worth speaking to on the phone that seems to care. With what appears to be a total lack of accountability, Its no wonder associates can be so rude to customers, there seem to be zero consequences for doing so.

So I'm reduced to complaining on a forum where my only hope at this point is whoever is in charge of the Hulen, TX somehow sees this and has some serious talks about how to treat customers.

I never thought that one bad experience could cause me to completely banish and write off a company but this one did, happy birthday to me.

Re: Bad Birthday Experience

This is not the way we wish any birthday to go, but I’m grateful you took the time to share with us on the Best Buy forums! Our Store Pickup is a fantastic option, but there are some times where we’re unable to fulfill these items in the store.

Because we ask our customer to wait for the “Ready for Pickup email” to avoid any inventory issues, I’m wanting to take a closer look into your order that was placed at the store. There are some instances where an item was showing available, but unable to be located for any reason, and the item would need to be shipped to you.

Knowing we’re unable to go back in time and erase the circumstances you endured, I’m looking to see if we can work together for a better shopping experience here soon! Please send me your full name, phone number, email address, and the order number that was placed that day.

Hope to hear from you soon!

JJ|Social Media Specialist | Best Buy® Corporate Give Kudos if you like this post or Accept as Solution if it answers your query!